Opening Day Game Thread – vs. Rays, Thursday, 3/26

[ZTR]

Walker first pitch swinging beats a ball into the ground to the left side. Error bails him out.

[stlcard25]

Situational baseball. Pages has no bat and his GIDP may have killed the only chance to score a run on this very good pitcher.

[ZTR]

Liberatore having a nice professional outing so far in the top of the third

[jj-cf-stl]

JJ with a “leadoff” round-tripper.
Trade him before he gets expensive!
😉

[stlcard25]

Welcome to the show, JJ Wetherholt! pic.twitter.com/Hi5pB4vNe7

— Dillard Barnhart (@BarnHasSpoken2) March 26, 2026

[ZTR]

Walker first pitch swinging again in his 2nd AB.

Another grounder to third.

He’s seen 2 pitches and is 0-2

[1982 willie]

That was a good hit by walker, just a solid play by tbird baseman to get him out. Tryin to be positive.

[jj-cf-stl]

Only 2 K’s in 16 batters. Doing the contact thing well.

[1982 willie]

Well church made a great play to maybe take away a homer but next one couldnt be taken away. Libbys kind of getting hit a bit this inning.

[Jnevel]

I think Walker is better off swinging at the first pitch. He struggles with pitch recognition. The first pitch is often a strike. Makes sense as a strategy to swing at that one than waiting to get setup.

[gscottar]

Libby has dodged several bullets this game. The dam is going to burst eventually.

[jj-cf-stl]

They were on him and Pages went heavy chang-ups. Worked

[ZTR]

Pretty rough day for Liberatore. 7-8 hits and a couple of walks in 5 innings. Lot of loud outs.

A very Mikolas like start.

[1982 willie]

Skubal pitched a scoreless 5 for the tigers. Prob going to be a cy young year for him. A young guy just like him is what we need to get this team going the right way. Im not sure we have that pitvher in the org yet.

[Jnevel]

2 pop ups that landed just out of reach of our fielders this inning. Poor Svanson leaves with the bases loaded to bring on Bruhil. I don’t like this situation.

[jj-cf-stl]

Libbys soft stuff was off and on. Pages managed that 5 IP, 1 ER very well.

[Jnevel]

I agree JJ. Libby couldn’t find his curveball today which limited his arsenal. 5 innings of limited damage was mostly fine

[gscottar]

This game may be a foreshadowing of this season in that our pitching has to be lights out for us to win. Not much margin for error because we can’t expect much help from the bats.

[Jnevel]

I don’t love Roycroft with bases loaded given his control.

As I type that, we get an infield hit that went about 6 feet.

[ZTR]

Well I hope the offense wakes up but at 6-1 that is probably ball game …

[1982 willie]

Well bullpen def doesnt look sharp. A little unlucky for roycroft with that swinging bunt single but thats going to happen with sinker ball pitchers. As i speak another swinging infield single.

[Jnevel]

I think 4 of our bullpen pitchers – at least 3 of them – won’t be on the team by July. They are placeholders for developing pitchers.

[jj-cf-stl]

.448 BAbip for TB. After Burlys 2nd hit stl is .222

[gscottar]

About half of the bullpen only made the team because this front office seems ridiculously afraid of moving someone off of the 40 man roster.

[jj-cf-stl]

Now we’re finding grass. 4 hits in a row.

[Author]

Posts